Remove old SQL backups

You should consider space needed and acceptable losses when determining a SQL backup retention policy.

Answer

Open up SQL Server Management Studio

In the Object Explorer pane, expand Management

Right-click Maintenance Plans

Select Maintenance Plan Wizard

When prompted, provide a meaningful Name and Description for your plan

If you would like this plan to run on a regular schedule, rather than On Demand, click Change to specify when the plan should run

Click Next

Check Maintenance Cleanup Task, then click NextNote: Highlighting a Task will show a description of what it does

If also performing other maintenance tasks, set the order in which they should be performed, then click Next

Select to delete Backup files, specify the location and file extension of your backups, and specify the age at which those backup files should be deletedNote: Full SQL backups typically use the BAK extension while Transaction Log backups typically use the TRN extension

Click Next

Specify the location to save or send reports when the maintenance job completes, then click Next

Review the settings for the maintenance plan, then click Finish

Overview

The purpose of this article is to provide the basic steps of creating a maintenance task within SQL Server which is crucial to the success of heavily coded or large databases. It is recommended to run this in accordance with your maintenance plan. A maintenance plan is suggested in our specifications guide. For a custom maintenance plan please contact our services department.